"Did I neglect to mention the room was windowless? And that several of the beds were equipped similarly to my own?"
"Now we're talking. Can you get us there?"
"Surely. It was the visiting team's shower."
He led them through a maze of tunnels. Past open doors, she caught glimpses of hoes, rakes, shovels, and other agricultural supplies. Hobson trudged up a flight of stairs, holding Ellie's upper arm for support, then wound down a long, curving corridor of gray cinderblock. It ramped down to a four-way intersection. To the right, Ellie smelled woodsmoke. To the left, a desk stood to the side of a short hallway that made an immediate right turn. Steady lamplight spilled from the turn. So did the echoed conversation of two men. Ellie backed up the hallway.
"The locker room," Hobson whispered. "The showers are just beyond it."
Ellie touched the butt of her gun. "Who's in there?"
"Shall I go ask?"
"We can't go in blind. There could be twenty men in there."
"We could take them by surprise," Dee said.
"Then what?" Ellie said. "Shoot them and tip off the whole stadium? Tie them up? What if Quinn's not in there? Do we cut their throats and stuff them in a locker so their friends won't find them while we're searching the Yankees' side?"
"Jeez. It was just a suggestion." She lifted her nose. "Something's burning down there. Why don't we go stoke it up? Make so much smoke they get scared and run out?"
"Good concept," Hobson said, "but much too complicated. Why don't I run off and make some noise? When they investigate, you two slip inside."
Ellie pulled the knit cap from her head; all this moving around had heated her up. "You can hardly walk, let alone run. What if they catch you?"
"Then please be as resourceful in that rescue as you have been in all else." He pointed up the hall. "Meet me at the service tunnel in five minutes. If you've got Quinn and I'm not there, get out of here."
"You really need to stop trying to sacrifice yourself," Ellie said. "One of these times, it's going to work."
He chuckled lowly. Ellie blew out her candle. They returned to the intersection and she hid behind the desk with Dee. Hobson gave them a little wave and jogged down the tunnel opposite the clubhouse. Dee slid out her pistol. Moments later, glass shattered in Hobson's direction. The men in the locker room went quiet. Wood rattled. Two men ran through the intersection clutching baseball bats.
Ellie waited for the light of their lantern to fade down the hall, then poked her head around the corner to the locker room. A couple candles flickered in the empty space. Dead flatscreens were arranged in a circle in the middle of the ceiling. Rather than metal gym-style lockers, the ones on the walls were like mini-closets made of rich, red-toned wood. Seeing no one, Ellie jogged across the room, startled by a distant bang of metal on cement. A door stood in the back wall. Ellie turned the lock and opened it to a cool, dark room.
She lit two candles and passed one to Dee. The floors were brown travertine, the walls small white tiles. Cots were arranged beneath the showerheads. Men sat up blinking, barring their forearms over their eyes. A few had their ankles chained to the legs of the cots, but most were unshackled. Dee rushed between them, candle whirling as she moved from face to face.
"Who are you?" one of the shackled men said.
"I don't see him," Dee said.
"Quinn Tolbert," Ellie said. "Is he here?"
The shackled man scratched his red beard. "If I can help, what do I get?"
Dee jogged across the room, face strained with panic. Ellie stood over the pale man. "Answers. Now. If they're good, we'll see about getting you out."
The man closed his eyes and shook his head. "I have the strangest condition. When I've got chains around my ankles, I can't remember a darn thing."
Ellie balled her fist. "I don't have time for this."
"Dee?"
Quinn wandered around a tile wall. It had hardly been a month since she'd seen him, but after the combination of time and distance—both physical and emotional—Ellie hardly recognized him. He was thin as a yardstick, ribs protruding from his light brown skin, the bones of his face hard and sharp. His eyes burned like headlights in a fog.
Dee was lean and tough from the last month's hunt, and when she threw herself at him, he staggered back, arm out for balance. She steadied them against the tile wall and they hugged each other until Ellie thought all four of their feet might lift from the floor.
Chains clanked on tile. The red-haired man shook his ankles at Ellie. "Wonderful moment. Now why don't you share the love and get me out?"
"Sorry," Ellie said. "We're on a tight schedule."
"That's too bad. Because if you walk out that door, I'm going to scream until every one of those Kono bastards comes running."
Ellie turned on him, resting her hand on the butt of her gun. "Not a good idea."
"Bullshit," he laughed. "A gunshot's the one thing that would bring them faster than a scream."
"Want to test that?"
"Go ahead."
He had nothing to lose and she had no doubt he'd yell if she tried to leave. She could try to knock him out, but if you rattled someone's brain hard enough to shut it down, there was a good chance it would stay down for good. And pistol-whipping the skull of a chained-up man was the kind of thing that might prompt the other captives to start screaming on his behalf. She might gag him, but she'd have to bind his hands, too. There'd be a scuffle. He'd shriek his lungs out.
A whack to the head, then. Do it fast and everyone would be too shocked to react. She glanced back at Dee, who stood in front of Quinn, watching.
The door banged open. Two men walked in with bats and lanterns. "What's going on in here? Who's got the light?"
He saw Ellie and Dee, armed and geared, and froze.
Ellie swung her pistol on him. "Get down on the ground with your hands on your head."
He backed away half a step. She cocked the hammer of her pistol, which was entirely unnecessary, but movies had conditioned people to react to this by stopping whatever they were doing to take your orders instead.
"You're fine," the red-headed man laughed. "Back out and get your people. She won't do it."
"I will." Dee stepped beside her, pistol in hand. "Down on the ground or I'll put you down."
The two Kono set down their lanterns and bats and lowered themselves to the cool stone floor. "Don't shoot."
"Where are the keys to these men's cuffs?"
"What are you doing?" Ellie said.
"They're slaves, Mom. I'm not leaving them."
It would make things messy. There were nearly twenty men crammed into the shower and sauna. Released into the stadium, they wouldn't stay quiet for long. Then again, if she left them here, the captives would be guaranteed to throw a fit. And she knew that, if she walked away now, she'd be seeing every one of those twenty faces each night in her dreams.
Ellie walked in front of the prone Kono soldier. "Where are the keys?"
Facedown, he shook his head. "I don't know."
She leaned her knee into the back of his neck and scraped the mouth of the gun into his scalp. "The keys."
"Third locker on the left as you walk in," he blurted. "Behind the brass panel."
She met Dee's eyes. "Go get them. Everyone else, stay still."
Dee exited the shower, Quinn in tow. The redhead considered her from his bunk. "Who are you?"
"Baker, farmer, mother, spy."
"Huh?"
"Here's the deal," she said. "We're cutting you loose. The concourse is guarded and the front gates are locked, but if you're quiet and you're smart, you can make it to a side door."
The man smiled. "Maybe we'll just go with you."
"No," she said. "You won't."
Something in her voice killed his smile dead. Dee returned with keys. Ellie covered the room while Dee unlocked handcuffs and chains, then relocked them around the wrists and ankles of the two Kono. While the unleashed prisoners put on shoes and coats
and took up baseball bats, Ellie hurried with Dee and Quinn to the intersection outside the locker room.
Hobson peeped around a corner. "Young master Tolbert!"
"There's a crowd of former slaves about to turn this place into a madhouse," Ellie said. "Which way to the field?"
The sheriff pointed down the opposite tunnel. "Dugout's through there."
Ellie hustled down the tunnel, glancing back to make sure the other three were keeping up. Their candles flickered, gleaming from the monitors of dead flatscreens hanging from the corners. Warm air fluttered down the passage, which soon became sweltering. A sloppy wooden door blocked the dugout. Beyond, they'd turned half the dugout into a fireplace, venting the smoke into the field and piping the heat back into the stadium. Warm as it was, she couldn't imagine it was enough to heat the lukewarm tunnels.
But she didn't have time to examine their infrastructure. She blew out her candle, stepped over sunflower shells frozen to the floor, and climbed past the railing to the snowy field. The looming bleachers were black and silent. Snow glittered on the stubbled ground. She got out her binoculars and homed in on the gap in the outfield wall. The seats around were empty. About four hundred feet to the bleachers.
She nodded to the others. They walked quickly along the third base wall, crunching through the snow beneath the terrace-farmed seats. After the tunnels, the cold was startling. Hobson moved stiffly, but without assistance. Quinn and Dee held hands. With pride both maternal and warrior, Ellie noted that Dee walked on his right side, leaving her right hand free to handle her pistol.
Shouts rang out from inside the concourse. A gun banged. Ellie kept her pace, moving into what had once been the outfield. Another shot echoed across the stadium. Snow spurted from the ground to Ellie's right.
"Run!" She ducked and sprinted through the snow, scanning the grandstands. Light flashed from the stands behind home plate. As the others ran past, Ellie knelt, aimed at the silhouette in the stands, and fired three quick shots. The shooter hit the dirt and disappeared. Ellie waited, sighting a foot above the terrace. Through the scope, a shadow rose, so dark and distant it might have been a trick of her mind. Starlight gleamed on glass. Ellie fired. The shape dropped.
She marked the spot, then ran ten yards toward the outfield wall, where Dee was boosting Quinn up the bullpen fence. Now that she'd put some distance between herself and her last muzzle flash, Ellie got down in the snow and aimed at the stands again. The terrace was motionless. At the bullpen, Hobson scrabbled over the wall, feet kicking. Ellie popped up and ran, zigzagging.
She reached the wall without taking any more fire. She shouldered her rifle and leapt up the wall. Quinn and Dee grabbed her arms. She kicked against the padded fence, got her chest above the edge, and dropped down the other side. They helped each other up the short fence to the bleachers and climbed past the seats to the outer wall. The rake head was gone.
Ellie dropped her gear and handed her rifle to Hobson. "Boost me up."
While Hobson covered, Quinn and Dee lifted her up the wall. She pulled herself up and straddled it. The ladder had fallen. The hose was a dark coil in the snow more than twenty feet below.
"Oh boy," Ellie muttered. She turned and met Dee's upturned face. "I'm about to break my neck. If I survive, watch out for incoming rakes."
Dee nodded. "If you don't, try to land in a way that would make a good cushion."
Ellie scooted along the wall, putting space between herself and the toppled ladder. Snow had drifted against the stadium, but there hadn't been a significant fall in days. If she broke her leg, she might not be able to walk home until it healed. If it healed. And if they found a way to keep themselves sheltered and fed until the snow melted.
Wind gusted over the wall, rocking her. A shot boomed somewhere inside the stadium. She breathed in and out and slid off the wall.
Cold wind rushed past her. A short shriek leapt from her throat. It was so far—and then her feet punched through the snow, and she tried to bounce forward, transferring her momentum into a shoulder roll. Her neck bent hard and she waited for the pop. Her feet flipped over her head and whacked into the snow. She lay on her back, neck and left ankle throbbing, body shot through with pain.
No time for a breather. She forced herself up, dragged the ladder to the wall, wedged its feet into the snow. She looped the rake-topped hose over her shoulders and climbed up. At the top of the ladder, she braced herself, got the hose in hand, and lobbed the rakehead over the wall. It hit with a clank. The hose tautened as the others reeled it in and secured it to the other side.
Quinn appeared atop the wall. He dropped the packs to Ellie and shimmied down the hose to the ground. Hobson climbed the wall and paused at the top to catch his breath. His face was as pale as the snow. He saw Ellie watching, smiled resolutely, then turned his back and climbed hand over hand down the hose. A few feet from the bottom, his hold gave out and he fell heavily into the snow. He gasped in pain. Ellie ran to him.
He waved her off, scowling. "I'm fine. Less meat on my backside than I'm used to, that's all."
He crawled out of the drift and pushed himself upright. Above, Dee hoisted herself up the wall and skedaddled down the hose as if she'd been training in competitive hose-climbing since childhood.
"Everyone good?" Ellie said.
Quinn and Hobson were both breathing hard from the climb, but they nodded. Dee grinned. "Better than I've been in weeks."
Ellie smiled back, turned from the stadium, and headed north. They didn't rest until they'd put an hour and a couple miles behind them. On the edge of a vast park, with Quinn and Hobson sitting on a bench to catch their breath, she gazed south, but Manhattan's skyline was lost in darkness and fog.
They had a long road ahead of them. There was too much snow and too little food. But Dee was still grinning, and so was Ellie. After all that bicycling, snowshoeing, hiking, scavenging, hunting, questioning, and fighting—across weeks of time and hundreds of miles of space—they had their family back.
Home was just a matter of time.
31
Nerve steadied the gun against Tilly's head. His eyes were bloodshot. The nail of his trigger finger had been split. Yellow fluid crusted its tip.
"You've seen better days," Lucy said.
"This one's shaping up better than I hoped," he said, inclining his head in a shrug. "When I saw you marching in, I thought you'd wind up coming back this way."
"You're some kind of coward," Lucy said. "Hiding in the trees while your people die for your crimes?"
"You're so much better?" he said. "Your people are dying, too. And you're running off with the prize."
"Those ain't my people."
"But I doubt they'd be fighting if not for you." He laughed harshly. "Thought so. Now drop your guns. Umbrella, too. That trick's as stale as a bag of prewar Ruffles."
She stared at his seeping fingernail. "Tilly used to have a dog named Max who got an infection just like that in his paw." She let her rifle fall to the ground. "Had to amputate when it went green."
"No more head games, Lucy. Don't forget the one on your ankle."
"He was a great dog. Would do anything for a treat." She unhooked her umbrella from the strap of her pack, knelt, and laid it across her foot to keep it out of the snow. She hiked up the shin of her jeans, revealing the little pistol, and laughed. "Tilly, you remember the trick we taught him for the talent show?"
Tilly nodded slowly. "Yeah."
Lucy ripped open the velcro strap and slung aside the .22. Empty-handed, she made a gun of her left hand and pointed it at Tilly. "Bang."
Tilly's eyes bulged. She dropped from Nerve's grasp like a stone, playing dead. Lucy rocked back, swinging up the barrel of the umbrella with her foot. Nerve shouted wordlessly and fired his gun through the space Tilly's head had just departed. Lucy grabbed the handle of the umbrella. He jerked the pistol toward her. With Tilly lying flat in the snow, Lucy pulled the trigger.
The recoil knocked her back into the sno
w. The shot sprayed a layer of Nerve's upper body to the seven winds. He staggered back, gasping, chest a landscape of red. His gun hand shook. Tilly scrambled for the pistol. Lucy chambered her second shell and fired. Nerve's forearm vanished. His hand flopped into the snow.
"Saved you a trip to the doctor." Lucy picked up the assault rifle and sighted in on his head.
"Nope," Tilly said. "This one's mine."
Nerve tried to speak but choked on the word. Tilly aimed the pistol and squeezed. His head jerked to the side. A stream of blood splashed the snow and steamed. The air smelled like burnt powder and flame-touched steel.
"Best move before someone comes to see who's shooting," Lucy said.
Tilly frowned at the body. "Wish there were some dogs around."
"What for?"
"Well, to eat him."
Lucy laughed and hung the rifle from her shoulder. "You're a sick one."
"Learned it from you."
"Anyway, in this city, there's plenty of rats happy to do the job." She started up Broadway. "Long walk ahead of us."
Tilly marched beside her, head craned to stare at Nerve's body, reassuring herself he was well and truly dead. "Where we headed?"
"I got a car stashed outside town. Been sitting in the cold awhile, but with any luck the battery's still good. If not, I guess it's a really long walk."
The girl laughed. "You had this all planned."
"Much as you can plan anything."
The towers looked down on them. There would never be another city like this. Maybe that was a good thing. She gave Central Park a wide berth, angling west to the highway fronting the Hudson. The snow on the wind-blown lanes was thinner than inside the city and it was the easiest walking Lucy had done in some time.
Safely away from the battle, she took stock of their condition. She was pretty tired. Might need a nap before she tried to drive. Meanwhile, Tilly didn't have a pack of any kind. Her feet would be soaked. Would need to find some spare socks and shoes on the way to the car. The snow could make the drive an adventure, too. Well, whatever. They'd deal with it when the time came.
They took a brief rest on 76th and Lucy shared some of the bread and mini-calzones she'd squirreled away from Sicily.
Reapers (Breakers, Book 4) Page 38
